Indirect or Direct Surround Speakers

[jagman]

I currently have bipolar surrounds and they sound decent enough, but they have no authority and mediocre fidelity. I'm thinking a change might be in order. What are your preferences?

[JCD]

I have Dipoles right now -- if the room was situated perfectly, I say dipoles might be the way to go.

However, if your room is anything like mine, it's not set up ANY WAY NEAR perfect. For that reason, I'd vote for directs.

JCD

[Sonnie]

I have heard that bipole and direct will give you more bass than dipole, but I don't have any proof... just the word of Brian Cheney at VMPS, whatever that might be worth.

[Ayreonaut]

I like using four direct surrounds.

[jagman]

I'm thinking about the approach GR Research is thinking of building. It has a 36" tall colum like enclosure with a BG Neo 3 PDR firing straight at the listeniner and a 5.25" woofer firing straight up. Sort of does the direct and indirect thing. The idea is it would be a floor standing rear/surround speaker that is tying to get the best of both worlds. I think this or purely direct radiators would work best for my room given the amount of acoustic room treatments.

[Darren]

I built the GR-Research AV1RS designs, much better than direct radiating. I used to have all 5 of the exact same MTM AV2's and much prefer the AV1RS for surrounds. More ambient, larger soundstage.

[Bruce]

Darren,

I'm assuming this is a 5.1 config, correct ?

Where are those AV1RS surrounds located with respect to the listening position ?

What size room ? I know your rearranging your website, how about a simple room layout diagram of speakers and seating with room dimensions ?

Love that IB !!!

[Darren]

Yes, it is currently a 5.1 config but they are also very good in 7.1 systems as side and surround. These speakers can be placed either on the side wall or rear wall. They should be 2 feet from the adjacent corner in either position and 16" from the ceiling. I have mine on the side wall 16" from the ceiling about 2 feet behind the listening position. It is unreal how well they disperse the rear soundstage. Very open.

I'll see about getting a room diagram made up soon! Maybe today

Darren

[Darren]

Ok, how's this? It isn't perfectly to scale but gives you the idea...

The center channel had to be mounted in the ceiling portion, no other possible location due to the brick wall behind the plasma. It integrates surprisingly well though. Very little baffle step issues even thoug it is recessed into the ceiling. I may change the center to a similar AV2 design that was designed with no baffle step loss to get that improvement though.

[Bruce]

Wow . . . .

Great, fast response. Thanks.

Yea, I was also wondering about 7.1 as well.

I currently have 5 Dynaudio Contour speakers (all direct radiators) and I was trying to figure out what to do about back surrounds vs side surrounds. This would be a Logic 7 capable HK 240 rcvr being used as only a prepro. The real question for me becomes how well the AV1RS would integrate with my Dyns. It seems like it would be worth trying and if they didn't work I could sell them. Maybe I even replace my current Dyn surrounds with another pair of AV1RS. Just thinking out loud.

[Darren]

I think they'd integrate wonderfully. I love the Dynaudio sound which is what attracted me to GR-Research...very similar in my opinion. I used to have 5 AV2's all direct radiating and I switched to the AV1RS for my surrounds for better WAF and in hopes that it would be an improvement on my surround effects. It turned out to be a HUGE improvement on rear effects. No longer are they localized, they are more ambient and the effects travel around the room much more convincingly.

[Sonnie]

Wouldn't this thread be more appropriate in the Speakers forum? I'm gonna move it there.

[nova]

Another approach (one that I really like) is the Bi-Di speakers. My 66-SE surounds have Bi-Polar woofers, and Di-polar tweeters.